AudiogoN Forums: How Do You Decide What to Listen To?

How Do You Decide What to Listen To?

As with most things audio related what should be simple ends up being somewhat complex (or stupid, depending upon your POV).

I have approximately 2,500 discs (90/10 in favor of vinyl). The CDs are stored in the listening room, but the vinyl is stored in an adjacent room. The records are stored on two separate 4 level racks and are arranged alphabetically by artist.

To listen to music I first have to decide on CD vs. vinyl. If I'm lazy, I'll simply press play and listen to whatever is already in the CD player (a 5 disc changer). Odds are that it will be a number of discs that I really like, but it ignores and eliminates from consideration the vast majority of music that I have available. If I take the time to start searching through either the CD or vinyl collection, then I run into another problem. To physically scan through 2000 records is time consuming. Typically it takes 5 or 10 minutes to pick out a half dozen or so records from which I'll actually listen to 3 or 4. Since I only have a limited amount of quality listening time, I tend to select only those records that I know I already really like. To an extent I'm still ignoring a large part of my music collection. While I'm enjoying what I do select, the problem is there's alot of really good music that I'm not listening to.

I guess my question really is - HOW DO YOU LISTEN TO ALL OF THE GOOD MUSIC YOU HAVE? To select one record means you have not selected another. With only a limited amount of time, do you end up listening to only a fraction of your collection? The same 100 or 200 hundred disc over and over again. I have a good size record collection, but I know from these Forums that others have double or quadruple of what I possess. I would assume that others have this problem and I'm interested in how you have addressed the issue.

Onhwy61 (System | Threads | Answers | This Thread)

01-10-02

Responses (1-18 of 18)

Click title to read one, or click date to read all below it.

01-10-02 For a daily or nightly listening session, which might only b ... Sc53

01-10-02 Related to your question, and to my previous answer, is my s ... Sc53

01-10-02 Right now i've got close to 1000 records and 150 cds. with c ... Marakanetz

01-10-02 Sometimes i just reach into my collection and pull out somet ... Muzikat

01-10-02 Completely depends on my mood, or who is around :) -if you k ... Tireguy

01-10-02 For those of you who have not seen the movie or read the boo ... Cornfedboy

01-10-02 Tim: i can't believe you're a greg brown fan. you know he's ... Cornfedboy

01-10-02 I listen to what i like. however, for more than 30 years i ... Whatjd

01-10-02 I stare at my cd/lp collection until beads of sweat form on ... Jond

01-10-02 So like 30-45 seconds?? Tireguy

01-10-02 It's kind of funny, but i started alphabetising all my music ... Ucmgr

01-10-02 Actually, that was supposed to be beads of blood! just not t ... Jond

01-11-02 Tireguy john tesh brings pain to me too and i didn't even h ... Clueless

01-11-02 Nice thread, onhwy61. except in the case where i've just bo ... Rcprince

01-11-02: Onhwy61
Interesting replies. I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw a little of themselves in "High Fidelity".

In another thread I described how I transferred my CD collection to a computer based digital jukebox. Recently I've even started to transfer parts of my vinyl collection (at least a 2 year project). To date I have nearly 5,000 individual songs at my immediate disposal. The iTunes software classifies the songs and allows me to sort by name, artist, genre and comment. Instead of a verbal comment, I gave each song a numerical rating (10-best, 0-worst). Any song rated 4 or higher is worth listening to with songs rated 7 or higher being my favorites. I've set up the following playlist:

Brand New - recent acquisitions
4 to 6 - songs rated between 4 and 6
6 & 7
7 to 9 - 40% of the collection
Slow Blues
Blues Kings - Albert, B.B. & Freddie
Guitar - hot guitar playing
Billie, Ella & Sarah
Ellington - the man and his band plus his songs by others
Gershwin - written by, but done by others
Jazz Guitar - Wes, Grant G., ect.
Jazz Piano - primarily McCoy and Monk
Live Performances - anything with an audience clapping
Love Songs - for those special momentsNew Orleans Sound
Pop/Rock Female Vocalist
Pop/Rock Covers - famous songs done by other artists
Pop/Rock Instumentals
Stan Getz
Vinyl - transferred from my vinyl collection

A listening session typically involves selecting a playlist and pressing play (less than 30 seconds including computer awakening). The playlist are always set to random play. Over the last two weeks I have been primarily listening to the "Brand New" or "7-9" playlists. A typical hour long listening session could have everything from Sly & Robbie, Herbie Nichols, Heaven 17, Marvin Gaye, Otis Rush, Dwight Y. and MC5. Sometimes the transitions are jarring, but in a way it adds a level of excitement. While I love this way of listening, it might not be for everyone. A friend commented that they missed listening to an entire CD in sequence. Another friend could not deal with changes in musical style. The beauty of the playlist format is that if I wanted to, I could setup a playlist to work around these complaints.

I recognize that my solution to the problem of selecting what music to play is an example of massive technological overkill. It was also time consuming and fairly expensive ($5,000) to setup. However, I can honestly say that in the few months I've had this setup, I am truly listening to more music and I'm listening to good music that I normally would have passed over. It's surprising how much music I already own that I love, but rarely listened to.

One last thing, I noticed that when I listened to CDs that I would not learn the names of the songs. Instead of the names I remembered CDs by track numbers. iTunes displays the song title. It's funny to now learn the names of songs that I've been listening to for years.
Onhwy61 (System | Threads | Answers | This Thread)

01-11-02 '61; a thought provoking thread, and you have an incredible ... Garfish

01-11-02 I'm old lazy and always tired. yes years back i had everythi ... Avguygeorge

01-12-02 Onhwy61 - i share your approach a lot of the time, though i' ... Kthomas